December 21, 2023 a contract for the construction of the Rail Baltica railway line in Latvia was signed. As part of the contract worth EUR 3.7 billion, the winning ERB RAIL consortium, consisting of France’s Eiffage Génie Civil, Polish’s Budimex and Italy’s Rizzani de Eccher, will build a 230-kilometre high-speed railway. The aim of the task is to integrate the Baltic States into the European railway network by creating a connection between Tallinn and Warsaw. The works will begin in 2024 and will last 8 years.
Budimex, which holds a 30% stake in the winning consortium, will build civil engineering structures and tracks for an approximately 230-kilometre section of the new Rail Baltica high-speed line in Latvia. The value of the contract, which includes 175 engineering structures and 11 animal crossings, is estimated at €3.7 billion. It will be the subject of several multi-year procurement: 85% of this project is financed by the European Connecting Europe Fund and 15% by the Republic of Latvia.
“The signing of this agreement and Budimex’s participation in the consortium implementing one of the largest EU railway projects is a great success for the Polish construction industry. The success of our country – Polish – is also the fact that it will be the general contractor of the largest infrastructure investment in Latvia with a total value exceeding PLN 16 billion. It will also be a high-speed line, which is the highest railway standard in Europe. We have been working on this contract as a consortium for over 2 years, together with leading players from the European Union market: Eiffage Genie Civil and Rizzani de Eccher – says Artur Popko, President of the Management Board of Budimex SA.
Recently, Budimex has significantly accelerated its expansion into foreign markets. The company has been present m.in for many years. in Germany. Recently, Budimex has been present in Slovakia, where it is building one of the most important and most anticipated motorway contracts in this area – the intersection of D1 and D4. What is more, later this year, the company will start the implementation of its first contract in the Czech Republic – the Kutřín dry retention reservoir. Budimex also submitted the lowest bids and took first place in two tenders: for the construction of the D11 Trutnov motorway section to the Polish border and the D35 motorway from Džbánov to Litomyšl in the Czech Republic.
“2023 was a breakthrough year for our group and we are ending it in very good moods. We have a stable order book, and the Rail Baltica project is the largest contract in the history of Budimex. We were very keen on geographical diversification, which is why we are all the more pleased that the chosen directions of development in the Budimex Group are already bringing such significant successes – says Artur Popko, President of Budimex.
Rail Baltica is being built as part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and is one of the most important completely new railway infrastructure projects in Europe. The purpose of the construction of the route connecting Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and, indirectly, Finland is to accelerate the integration of these areas with the European Union and to increase trade between these countries, thus enabling the creation of a genuine European single market. An important element of the investment is also the ecological aspect – the construction of the line will make the railway an alternative to road transport, and thus significantly reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. The design speed of the Baltic section of the route connecting Tallinn, Pärnu, Riga, Panevėžys, Kaunas, Vilnius and Warsaw is 249 km/h for passenger transport and 120 km/h for freight trains.
The tender for the construction of the Latvian section was announced in 2021 and was a two-stage procedure. In February 2022. 6 consortia applied for pre-qualification. The final selection was made in September 2023.
